Conscientious SEOs analyze Google's behavior for oddities, even when they're doing something unrelated to working on their web sites. This week's thread illustrates that point. Stop by and join the discussion!
danielfoley Google Geographic Targeting Switched Off! Yes, its true, Google has switched off geographic targeting, at first I was skeptical, but after a bit more research, I have concluded that geo targeting is off, and just to show you an example, In www(dot)google(dot)co(dot)uk I perform a search for "Southbank Restaurants" as I feel like taking my girlfriend out for a meal by the Thames in London, so I do the Southbank Restaurants search, and I get the following: [image deleted] As you can see above, I am getting results from Australia, which is absurd, even though there is a place called southbank in Australia, the fact that I am searching from the UK and searching in Google UK should have meant that my results were filtered. This just goes to show that there is no geo filtering or targeting in enforcement. Sadly, because of this, millions of websites and webmasters have seen a decline in rankings because of the introduction of foreign websites into UK serps. At the minute, nothing is or has been done to correct it, and with the upcoming Google Caffeine, it seems like this issue will not be resolved until Caffeine is hard launched. So if your seeing screwy results, its most probably got some relation to geo filtering, unless your in a niche market, which is less likely to have been impacted by foreign sites.
JVRudnick
Not here in .ca land! Here in the Toronto area of Canada, I use LOCAL searches all the time...but your premise I think is not true for here! When I go to google(dot)ca and search (not logged in my g account!) I get the following search for "Hamilton restaurants" -- [image deleted] As you can see, what I get IS targeted for my locale... And when I go to google(dot)com I get the SAME LOCAL listings.... So, what's up in the UK may ONLY be in the UK... Anyone else?
Zagek
I'm from the UK and have performed the same search as you and I also get the AU results. However, I do still get local results when I type Manchester restaurants, or anything else actually - unless I specifically target locations outside of this country. Perhaps it doesn't consider Southbank an actual place in London, therefore it displays the only Southbank or largest it can find which is in Australia. Hmmm :/
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